Harsh Security Standards May Lead to More Security Breaches

Not only do end users experience challenges with the applications they use daily, many of the activities they must perform as part of their daily work also cause frustration. The activities that cyber security professionals say are the most likely to cause a security breach are the same activities where end users run into the most frustrating security measures. The top areas for cyber security professionals’ concern and end users’ frustration are surfing the Internet, downloading files, accessing networks and transferring files.

“More security rules, more security tasks, and more security delays have done little to drive more user buy-in for cyber security,” said Tom Ruff, vice president public sector, Akamai. “Without question, federal cyber security pros have a tough job, but they must start working with end users as partners instead of adversaries. It is a team game, and better support for users will deliver better results for security.”

MeriTalk, a public-private partnership focused on improving the outcomes of government IT, recently announced the results of its new report, “Cybersecurity Experience: Cybersecurity Pros from Mars; Users from Mercury.” The study, underwritten by Akamai Technologies, Inc., compares what cyber security professionals report about their agency’s security with what end users – federal workers – actually experience. According to the report, agencies often fail to take the user experience into account when deploying cyber security solutions. As a direct result, end users often circumvent security measures and open their agencies up to data theft, data loss and denial-of-service attacks.

To protect the company from those insiders who abuse their privileged access and from hackers with stolen credentials, many companies are turning to a privileged access management (PAM) solution. ... More >>